


small boy, rather pale

by Naraht



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Adopted Yuri Plisetsky, Adoption, Adoption Trauma, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Culture Shock, Gen, M/M, Names
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-01-08 06:17:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12248679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naraht/pseuds/Naraht
Summary: When we first met Kevin, in an orphanage outside Moscow, we couldn't believe our luck. Like most international adoptive parents, we'd come to Russia on the strength of a promise and one picture: a skinny blond boy with big blue-green eyes, scowling endearingly at the camera....





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Have you ever accidentally committed fic? There are lots of Yuri-is-adopted stories on the AO3, mostly with Victor and/or Yuuri as the adoptive parents. Seeing those stories, I found myself thinking of real Russian orphanages and international adoptions from Russia. And almost before I could stop myself, this fic happened. It's rather dark, in its way, so be warned. 
> 
> It's not intended as a blanket critique of international adoptions, but I wanted to explore the potential for tragedy and tragic misunderstandings on both sides.
> 
> The title is from a track from Lionel Bart's _Oliver!_ : "Boy for Sale."
> 
> (Please note: this story contains ablism and one ablist slur.)

_ A Russian adoption odyssey: when love isn't enough _

_When we first met Kevin, in an orphanage outside Moscow, we couldn't believe our luck. Like most international adoptive parents, we'd come to Russia on the strength of a promise and one picture: a skinny blond boy with big blue-green eyes, scowling endearingly at the camera._

_Everyone who adopts from Russia has heard the horror stories about Russian orphanages, the dark rooms lined with babies and toddlers confined permanently to cots. Although the orphanage was definitely grim, we found that Kevin was a lively, energetic little boy who (we were told) had only been there for seven months, since the death of his grandfather._

_Of course he didn't speak any English, so we mostly had to communicate without words. Kevin did cartwheels and spun around and sang for us, what we were told was a Russian folk song. It looked like he was trying to charm us – and charm us he did. We thought we'd beaten the odds._

_But once we got him home to Georgia, we started to see a different side of Kevin..._

***

Life in the orphanage was tough, but Yuri was tough too. He might be small for his age, but he could bite and kick, and after a while the older boys kept a respectful distance.

He didn't make any friends at the orphanage, but that didn't bother him. Every day he would go and climb a little tree in the grounds, and sit there on a branch imagining that he was going to be adopted by Yakov Feltsman.

A few weeks before his grandfather died, they had watched the Olympics together. _That's where you'll be someday,_ his grandfather had said. _Sitting beside Feltsman. Do you know that he found Victor skating in a public rink?_

Coaches went looking for talent, Yuri knew. Maybe he came to the orphanage every so often to look at all the older children. Check their teeth, stretch their legs up to the sky, see how high they could jump. Yuri could jump higher than anyone. And he could skate already, he could do a toe loop. Once Yakov saw Yuri, he wouldn't even need to look at the other kids. Then he would take him home...

...but Yakov Feltsman never came.

***

Although it had been six months since his grandfather had died, six months in the orphanage, Yuri hadn't given up. 

Maybe he wasn't a cute baby, but at least he wasn't one of those lumps who'd spent their whole lives in the orphanage, pale and wasting away behind the bars of a cot. He wasn't a retard, he didn't rock back and forth or hit himself, he didn't scream at night. He only kicked when someone deserved it and he only stole when he really had to. He knew what it was like to have a family. 

He was six years old and people said he was cute. He could write his name, his whole name, even though it was very long and complicated. _Юрий Николаевич Плисецкий._ He could jump and dance and skate. He was the best kid in the orphanage. Of course someone would want him. They would be lucky to have him.

That was what he told himself at night, when he hugged the pillow close in his dormitory and tried not to miss his grandfather or wonder what had happened to his cat. If he did cry, he never let anyone see.

"There's a family coming to adopt you, Yura," said Olya Ivanovna one day, out of the blue. "All the way from America. If you want to go to live in America, you must be good when they visit."

"Yeah," breathed Yuri.

He hardly knew anything about America, but he had heard enough to know that it was a wonderful place, and that he must be special for them to want to take him there. He promised himself that he would prove to them that he was worth taking.

"God help them," muttered Olya. "If they only knew."

***

They lived in a place called Georgia. Not the real Georgia, another one somewhere in America. They were obviously rich because the house was huge: his new parents had a bedroom, and Yuri had his own bedroom, and there was a third bedroom that nobody ever used. There was a garage with two cars in it, and there were even two bathrooms, which was crazy.

They bought him clothes, more clothes than he'd ever owned in his life. They bought him books in English, which he couldn't read. They bought him a new bike to ride.

Outside, the sun boiled down. The house was at the end of a street, a long way from the other houses, with only a few spindly trees for shade. The street ended in a big circle of black asphalt, and Yuri stood there in blank amazement as the heat rippled off it. Under the rubber soles of his sneakers, it felt almost sticky. There were almost no cars driving; there were no people walking around at all. He had never seen a place like this before.

He rode the bike around in aimless circles and came inside again with his skin blistering red from the sun. Maybe it was always too hot for ice skating here.

His new parents didn't understand anything he said. They talked to him all the time in English, like they thought he ought to understand them, even though he was just a little kid and they were the adults. He never even heard them say his name. They just said _Kevin, Kevin_. It took him a long time to realise that they meant him.

"Я русский!" he said. "Не понимаю."

_I'm Russian. I don't understand._

In reply they just smiled; even when he did something they didn't like, they still smiled. He wondered when they would stop smiling, why they didn't know that he couldn't speak English, whether they would decide that he was stupid and send him back to the orphanage. Sometimes he half wished that they would.

But still he didn't give up. He couldn't give up now. He owed it to his grandfather.

He tried drawing pictures of himself skating, himself standing on a podium next to Viktor Nikiforov and Stéphane Lambiel. They smiled proudly at the pictures and put them up on the refrigerator.

"Виктор Никифоров," he said slowly and patiently, pointing up at the picture. "Стефа́н Ламбье́ль. Я."

_Viktor Nikiforov. Stéphane Lambiel. Me._

Was it possible that they had never even heard of Viktor Nikiforov?

"Skate," he said, frustrated now. It was one of the few English words that he knew. He mimed pushing off with one foot, sliding a little in his socks on the slippery kitchen floor. "Skate. Want skate."

Later that week they gave him a skateboard. It had a big red bow wrapped around it. He looked back and forth between their beaming, hopeful faces and wanted to cry.

"Do you like it, Kevin?" said his new mother.

It was too much. He hurled the shiny new skateboard at her, as hard as he could. 

"Yuri!" he screamed in Russian. "My name is _YURI!_ Yuri Nicolaievich Plisetsky!"

They couldn't pretend that they didn't understand what he meant.

"Your name is Kevin now," said his new father, the smile finally wiped off his face. "You're Kevin Baker. Our son."


	2. Chapter 2

_On thin ice: how a trip to the mall changed our lives_

_Our first few months with Kevin were hell on earth. His anger issues and oppositional behavior turned the simplest request – if he even understood it – into a battle that could last for hours. Not to mention the fact that 'hyper' didn't even begin to describe him. For months I had to make dinner every night with Kevin trying to slide from one end of the kitchen to the other in stocking feet. The tantrum that resulted if we tried to stop him was indescribable._

_We signed him up for Little League right away, but soon realised (and that's a post in itself) that the language barrier combined with his behavioral issues would make team sports impossible for him. Let's just say that putting a baseball bat in Kevin's hands and expecting him to use it responsibly was a bad idea!_

_Although he loved the trampoline that we bought for the back yard, it wasn't enough. We knew it wasn't enough, but what else could we do?_

_We found ourselves at the ice rink by accident, because we'd taken Kevin to a different mall than usual._ _His eyes lit up the moment he saw the rink. Exhausted by constant power struggles, I gave in and rented two pairs of skates._

_When we got to the edge of the rink, I took his hand, but Kevin wasn't having any of it. He pulled out of my grasp, stepped onto the ice – and glided effortlessly away. It was the moment that changed our lives forever._

_No one at the orphanage had told us that Kevin could skate. Maybe they didn't know. In retrospect, he'd been trying to tell us himself for quite a while. I watched as he skated in circles around the rink – and then my heart leapt into my mouth as he jumped into the air, spun around, and landed neatly on one foot._

_An instructor at the rink that day, who was giving lessons to a girl who must have been twice Kevin's age, actually stopped to watch him._

_"Is that your son?" he said. "He's very good."_

_"Yes," I said, tears coming to my eyes. "That's Kevin. He's my son. My son."_

_"Who's coaching him?"_

_In those days I wasn't used to talking to people about our adoption journey. I stammered something about how we'd brought him home from Russia a few months ago, and how we'd come to the rink purely by chance. I found myself pouring out my heart to this man I had just met, saying that Kevin was uncontrollable, that no form of discipline we'd tried seemed to have any effect. I confessed something I'd been unwilling to say to my friends: that we were at our wits' end._

_The instructor – Jack Simons, who was to become Kevin's first coach – skated up to Kevin, said something I couldn't make out, and demonstrated a one-foot spin. Without hesitation, Kevin copied it perfectly._

_And then Kevin, who had not voluntarily spoken a single sentence in English since he had come home with us, looked up at Jack and said, with perfect clarity: "I want to skate. I'll be good." After a pause he added: "Please."_

_That was the day that we first began to understand the gift that God had given Kevin, and to realise that it was also an answer to our prayers – a way to reach him._

*** 

Kevin Baker made it to the Golden Spin of Zagreb when he was eighteen. His parents were so proud.

His mom had this blog about Russian adoption, but it was really mostly about him. People called her up crying at 3am all the time, thanking her for giving them hope, thanking her for letting them know it was possible to get through ' _the difficult years'_ without your child stabbing you in your sleep or burning down the house with you in it. 

(Once. Once, and there had only been minor smoke damage. He had just been trying to light a candle. He still wasn't sure that his parents believed him.) 

Anyway, it was so embarassing. Especially now, when she was making out that he was some sort of champion for getting to a minor international skating competition as an alternate, because the guy who should have been going had an infected toenail from an unwise pedicure.  

Her latest blog post was a painstakingly itemized estimate of all the money that she and his dad had spent on IVF treatment. And adopting him from Russia. And therapy, a shitload of therapy (ongoing). And then the skating, and the coaching, and the costumes, and moving to be closer to the rink, and all the travel to competitions. 

 _Your son getting to skate on the same ice as Victor Nikiforov?_ it concluded. _Priceless._  

She'd even dug out and scanned a crayon drawing he'd done as a little boy, showing himself standing on a podium between Victor Nikiforov and Stéphane Lambiel. She'd cropped out the signature, which was his Russian name, running in capital letters all the way along the bottom of the page, a few final letters crammed crookedly into the corner. He didn't even remember drawing it. 

 _Figure skating saved my son's life,_ she said. There were 337 comments on the post. 

*** 

It was a fluke that Victor Nikiforov was there at all. Ordinarily he would never have bothered with a second-rate ISU Challenger competition, but he was chasing the TES minimums to qualify for the 2018 Olympics after most of a year spent fighting injury. He was nearly thirty.

Of course he crushed the competition anyway. He was that good.

As for Kevin, he skated better than he had ever skated in his life. He topped his personal best by five points and he landed his triple axel perfectly. That meant that he came in fourteenth out of eighteen, instead of dead last. It wasn't a surprise. He didn't have any quads; his coach had spent most of the past year trying to get him to accept it. The discussion about his free program for Golden Skate had ended with Kevin screaming "fuck you!" and hurling his skates across the locker room.  

He sort of felt bad about it now – but not that bad. He'd thrown in the quad toe loop anyway. Though the attempt had left him black and blue all down his left side, it hadn't been downgraded, so at least he'd gotten credit for it. Kevin considered that a win. 

It was probably time to look for a new coach anyway, not that any of the coaches at Golden Spin were likely to be interested in an underpowered American boy with a badly-healed ACL and anger issues. So argued Kevin, at least, though his mom said that this was defeatist thinking. 

***

It felt like he ran into Yakov Feltsman everywhere. Feltsman in the warm-up area, pacing back and forth in a Team Russia hoodie like he was about to take to the ice himself. Feltsman in the hotel coffeeshop at breakfast, eating a bagel while shouting in Russian at full volume into his phone. Feltsman in the hotel elevator, punching the 'door open' button so that it didn't leave without Kevin. They were the only two people in the elevato

Kevin ought to have said 'thanks.' He knew it; his mother would have killed him if she'd known. But he couldn't bring himself to look Feltsman in the eye. A hot, unquenchable sense of betrayal rose in his chest whenever he saw the man. 

 _You asshole,_ he wanted to shout. _How could you have abandoned me like that?_ _You were meant to come and rescue me. My grandfather told me that you would sit beside me at the Olympics._

And yet feeling that way made him want to kick the wall of the elevator in shame. It was so unspeakably dumb and childish. Of course Yakov Feltsman had never even heard of him before Golden Spin – much less in 2006 – and he probably couldn't pick him out of a crowd now. Like there was any possible universe in which Yakov Feltsman, the skating world's most successful coach, would ever have given a damn about Kevin Baker. 

What the hell was Kevin imagining anyway – that he could have moved into Feltsman's spare room and gone on to win the Grand Prix Final at fifteen or something? Why not throw in a few ballet lessons from Lilia Baranovskaya as well?

If he was avoiding Yakov Feltsman it was only because he was disappointed in himself, for having once believed in fairy tales. 

***

Victor Nikiforov was easier to avoid. He moved through crowded rooms as if on a slightly different plane of reality from everyone else, a superior being who mixed with humanity only on sufferance and wore sunglasses even indoors. People said that he didn't even bother to learn your name unless you had two quads minimum.

No doubt he would have laughed out loud if anyone had shown him the puff piece that had run in _People_ magazine a couple of weeks ago: _From Russian orphan to elite athlete - will the Olympics be next for Kevin Baker?_

Kevin hated Victor Nikiforov, but only a little. There was something magnificent about being so good you could get away with being that much of an asshole.

Besides, he had admired Victor since – since _before_. It was difficult even thinking about it. For him, everything that had happened before he was six was like a different land. Hardly any words, just fragments; mostly he remembered the feelings. 

Only rarely did he allow himself to venture into that land. His memories were delicate enough that he was afraid they would tear if handled too roughly, like tissue paper being reused again and again. _My room. My cat. My grandfather. My first skating lesson._ When his mother said 'Kevin's first skating lesson,' she meant something else entirely. Different coach, different country, different name. 

Only Victor was the same in both places. It made Kevin feel like he was seeing in double vision, with Victor the only fixed point. 

That made him hate him a little too.

***

As soon as he arrived at the banquet, Kevin knew that he should have stayed in his room.

All the European skaters knew each other already; they were laughing and chattering in a dozen different languages, including Russian, which nagged at him like a tune he couldn't quite place. Most of them were drinking too. He supposed he was legal in Croatia – he was eighteen, after all – but after that Jim Beam incident when he was fifteen, it didn't really seem worth it.

So he stood around at the edge of the room, feeling incredibly lame as everyone else took photos and exchanged numbers and promised to see each other at the next competition. There was no point; he wasn't going to be at the next competition, not the ones they were talking about. He was flying home to work on his application to Boston University, where he was sure he was going to be the best skater on the team. How depressing.

And there was Victor Nikiforov, sweeping past right on cue. He'd even deigned to leave his sunglasses behind. Apparently there were a couple of people here that he considered worthy to look into his eyes.

He stopped, looked right at Kevin, and smiled. _I'm probably standing in front of the canapes or something,_ thought Kevin. 

"A commemorative photo?" asked Victor casually in English.

"Why would I want a photo with _you_?" said Kevin. 

He leaned in for the inevitable selfie with an attitude that (he hoped) suggested he thought he was doing Victor a favor. "You're ancient, Victor Nikiforov. You should retire already."

Instead of storming off in a huff, Victor just looked amused. "Your pronunciation is very good, you know. Most Americans say _NikiFORov_." He showed Kevin the picture on his phone. "There. That came out well, didn't it? We look good together. You have very Slavic cheekbones."

He was right, it was a good picture. They were cheek to cheek, blond hair against silver. They looked like friends, like brothers, like rinkmates. It was such a lie. Kevin promised himself that he would delete it as soon as Victor left. There was no way he would let his mother get hold of it for the blog. 

"And would you like an autograph too, ah...?"

Victor Nikiforov didn't know his name. Of course he didn't.

Kevin blinked. He wanted to say _fuck off already_ but the words wouldn't come. His tongue seemed to have swelled in his mouth. He didn't even think he could remember his name. His mouth had rusted shut. He struggled for something, anything to say. 

The words came from nowhere, from a grave buried a decade deep. He found himself choking out six syllables, a sentence he had long ago forgotten:

"Меня зовут Юрий!"

 _My name is Yuri._  

Victor only smiled the light, apologetic smile of the easily forgetful, as if he'd been caught out mistaking Kevin for someone else.

"I'm sorry!" he said, switching to Russian as if nothing could be more natural. "Of course – _Yuri_!"

Yuri Plisetsky threw his arms around Victor and burst into tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A great article about what it's like being at your first international competition: http://figureskatersonline.com/news/2015/12/03/a-chat-with-sean-rabbitt-before-golden-spin/


	3. Chapter 3

Trying to explain things to Victor Nikiforov was excruciating. It also took ages. 

No, Victor hadn't been wrong. He was American, and he was competing for America, and his name was Kevin Baker. It was just that he'd been adopted from Russia when he was six – yes, he'd already started skating, he remembered watching Victor on TV winning gold at Turin – and he had been called Yuri then. It had been years and years since he'd heard anyone speaking Russian in person, and he was sorry for behaving like such a moron, but it was just so fucking _weird_ , and...

Kevin did his best, but he would have been far happier if a meteorite had struck the hotel – leaving the whole of central Zagreb a smoking hole in the ground, and the world with a sudden, distinct shortage of elite figure skaters.

"I'm not usually this fucked up," he concluded. "Not quite. Just – thanks for the autograph, OK?"

If Victor Nikiforov were to announce tomorrow morning that he had decided never to take another selfie or sign another autograph with a fan, Kevin would not have been remotely surprised.

But Victor just tilted his head to one side. "Would you prefer me to call you Kevin, then? Or Yuri?"

It didn't matter, it didn't matter, because Victor was never going to speak to him again anyway. 

"Yuri," he said, swallowing hard.

"Yura," said Victor, "do you think we should go for cocktails now?"

And there was the meteorite. Total destruction incoming. 

_Did he say 'we'? Did he actually say 'Yura'?_

"But... the banquet...?"

"Oh, of course, I forgot this is your first international competition! If you want to stay, that's fine! I just get so tired of these things. Every competition it's the same people, the same old boring conversations." He paused and smiled. "Until now! I've never had this conversation before."

"Let's get out of here," said Kevin.

***

Before coming to Zagreb for the Golden Spin, Kevin had let himself indulge in all sorts of fantasies. Like the one where everyone else was struck down by the flu, or a massive epidemic of food poisoning, and he wound up winning gold.

But it had never even occurred to him to imagine skipping out on the banquet with Victor Nikiforov to go to what was obviously the swankiest cocktail bar in Zagreb. High ceilings, gilt and chandeliers, a marble-topped bar. People were laughing and talking in Croatian. They sat together at a leather upholstered banquette and Victor ordered brandy for both of them. 

His drink sitting forgotten on the table, Kevin gaped disbelievingly around him. Victor was sipping his drink and chattering on about the competition like there was nothing strange about any of this. Probably, for him, there wasn't. Probably he did stuff like this every day.

"Huh?" said Kevin.

Victor had just asked him something and he had no idea what. It was noisy in the bar and Victor's English, while good, was heavily accented. Also Kevin had been too busy staring at Victor to pay attention to what he was saying. Now he felt like even more of an idiot.

Victor leaned forward a little. "I was just wondering how much training you do. On an average day?"

He was such a smooth operator. He said it like he was sincerely interested.

"Two hours on ice before school; an hour off ice after school."

" _Three hours?_ " The other kids at Kevin's high school had reacted with the same incredulity; Kevin suspected it had been for different reasons. "And why do you go to _school_? Don't you have tutors in America?"

Kevin shrugged. "You have to go to school."

"No you don't! I didn't! No one does if they're really serious about it."

"But you need to, like, have something to fall back on. You're not going to skate forever."

This was exactly what his parents said. Victor didn't need anything to fall back on, filthy rich from endorsements as he was, but his parents liked to point out that Kevin couldn't count on following in the footsteps of Victor Nikiforov.

"Not with a training program like that, certainly," said Victor.

"Well, what sort of training program do _you_ think I should have?"

In his own voice Kevin could hear what his mother called 'that challenging tone.' He couldn't believe he was talking like this to Victor Nikiforov. Maybe he was a little bit drunk. The brandy was stronger than he'd realised.

Weirdly Victor didn't even seem offended. "You're too good to just scrape by like that. You need someone who'll work you harder. Much harder. You should come to Russia and train with us."

"Yeah, right," said Kevin.

Victor's eyes widened with emphasis. "I mean it! I'll talk to Yakov tomorrow."

Now Kevin _knew_ that Victor wasn't serious. He definitely had an ulterior motive. Weirdly, this made Kevin feel a little more at ease.

"Sure," he said. "That would be great."

He was under no illusions that Victor was actually going to recommend him to Yakov, but if they were saying that was the deal, then he would play along. He was flattered enough that Victor was willing to pretend Yakov Feltsman might have any interest in coaching some random, second-rate American kid. Hell, he would have been flattered enough if Victor had gone straight to propositioning him. 

"So, what now?" he added.

Victor looked mildly, politely confused. "If you're tired, I'll ask them to call you a taxi..."

It did seem slightly unfair that Victor was making him be the one to say it, when presumably he knew how these things were meant to go.

Kevin sighed. "I mean, do you want me to blow you? Or – or something?"

_'Or something.' God, Kevin, could you sound like any more of a moron?_

He had planned to finally come out to his parents when he got back from Zagreb. It wasn't just that he had been putting it off. It seemed like it would be the right time, when he'd just done something to prove that he wasn't a complete and utter screwup. Maybe his decent results in the competition would help to balance out the disappointment.

Even if he hadn't already decided to come out, being in Zagreb would have made him realise that it was time. It was so different in Europe – like in Russia, Japan, every other civilized country – where they really didn't give a shit who you slept with. He'd come across a couple of juniors boys practically dry-humping in one of the hotel hallways, with one of their coaches coming down the hall right behind him. Kevin had held his breath, but all the guy had said was _save it for after the free program, Pavlik! And keep it in your room!_

So being at Zagreb had been inspiring in all sorts of ways. It was, Kevin hoped, about to get even more inspiring.

Except that Victor's mouth had dropped open. "Wow, no," he said.

"Oh shit," said Kevin.

"You're very good looking! It's not like I... I mean, of course I would... though you're a little young for me really, so I don't... but that's not the point, is it?" The torrent of words finally dried up; Victor tilted his head quizzically at Kevin. "Did you think this was a, a... what do you say in English?"

" _Quid pro quo_?" suggested Kevin.

"Isn't that Latin? Never mind, I'll take your word for it."

"Yeah," said Kevin flatly. "I did. Actually."

"I'm sorry!" said Victor Nikiforov. "I didn't think! Yakov says I never think, he's probably right."

Maybe Kevin was a little drunk. He felt like he was several miles behind the conversation, or possibly having a different conversation entirely. "Forget I said anything."

"Forgotten!"

The weird thing about Victor was that you kind of believed him. "So what now?"

"Now," said Victor cautiously, "I'm going to tell Yakov that he should have a talk with you. Like I said I would."

"Why?" 

"Because I think you're a good skater with absolutely unforgivable coaching and choreography. And because Yakov has a drought of male skaters at the moment. Whether or not I can get to the Olympics with this knee, I owe him."

"Oh," said Kevin. "Right."

Apparently it was as simple as that.

(He would have blown Victor anyway.)

***

Kevin snuck out of his room very early the next morning. He left his phone on silent, knowing his parents would assume that he was still sleeping off the banquet, and went out to the little café just around the corner from the hotel. It was, he thought, a little like being a spy. The planned defection, the secret rendezvous.

Not that Victor and Feltsman were doing a very good job of concealing themselves. They were there sitting at a table right by the big plate glass window, illuminated by the golden light of the café, talking animatedly together. They were waiting for him. Kevin was just pondering whether he should turn around and run when Victor looked out the window and gave him a cheery wave.

After the pre-dawn chill of Zagreb, the café seemed as hot as a greenhouse. Victor stood up while Kevin was still busy trying to disentangle himself from his coat and scarf, kissed him on both cheeks and launched immediately into introductions.

"Yakov, this is Yura! Yura, this is Yakov Davidovich."

"Yura," said Feltsman, offering his hand from a seated position.

Even before Kevin's coffee arrived, Victor had finished retelling his story, which sounded a lot more dramatic from his mouth than it had been in Kevin's version. Yakov's English was passable when it came to giving interviews with Western reporters, but it still wasn't very good. So Victor ended up saying things once in English, with Yakov nodding and scowling darkly, and then repeating it all in Russian, with Yakov nodding and scowling even more vigorously. 

Towards the end, Feltsman put in a few questions to Kevin. They were probing ones about his (terrible) coaching history and which jumps he found difficult. If you'd asked Kevin yesterday, he would have assumed that Feltsman didn't know him from Adam, but Feltsman had clearly watched at least a few of his old competition videos since then. Just the thought of it left Kevin cringing inside.

Victor largely ignored this technical discussion. "So anyway," he concluded, "as I was telling Yakov before you came in, I think you should come back to Saint Petersburg with us."

Kevin shook his head in disbelief. "What, now?"

"Maybe not now," conceded Victor. "Maybe you'd have to go home and pack first."

This was not much of a concession. "But I can't, like, just get up one morning and announce I'm going to Russia. My parents would flip."

"You're eighteen, aren't you?"

"Yeah."

"Then you can."

"But... no! I can't! I mean..."

"Why not?" pursued Victor with the intentness of a champion who is used to getting everything he wants.

Why not indeed? No rebuttal leapt immediately to Kevin's tongue because it had never occurred to him that he might need one. People didn't just uproot their whole lives and fly halfway around the world on a whim. Not in Kevin's experience anyway. Maybe it was the sort of thing Victor Nikiforov would do.

"Because!" He scrabbled around lamely for some sensible reason. "A plane ticket to Russia would be, like, a thousand dollars. I don't have any money, I don't even have a credit card. And then what would I do when I got there?"

" _Da, da!_ " said Feltsman, nodding in agreement. 

He said something more complicated and forceful in Russian to Victor, who responded with equal urgency. Their exchange was loud enough that people at other tables started glancing in their direction. To Yuri it was all just a babble of syllables, until he thought he heard Feltsman saying _coach_ and then _who would pay?_

Victor made a dismissive, lordly gesture. "я бы." _I would._

Another heated exchange between Feltsman and Victor. Kevin was grateful for this because it meant they didn't notice his spit take into his coffee cup.

Eventually they both fell silent again. Feltsman continued to stolidly eat his breakfast. Victor put his elbows on the table, rested his chin in his hands, and stared at Feltsman. Kevin picked at the croissant he'd ordered, trying to forget that he was sitting at a small table with the greatest figure skater and the greatest figure skating coach of all time.

"Well," grumbled Feltsman finally, "I can't tell anything without getting him on the ice."

"Why don't we?" said Victor. "There must be another rink here somewhere. Don't you always keep a secret list of emergency practice rinks?"

"Vitya, we have to get to the airport!"

"We have time! It'll be on the way!"

Yakov shook his head. "That's exactly what you said in Tel Aviv."

From the effort Victor put into giving Feltsman an innocent look, Kevin could tell that Tel Aviv had ended badly. His heart sank a little, knowing that this whole crazy escapade was about to come to an end. But what a story he would have to tell.

Yakov Feltsman looked at him. "Get your skates," he said. "The taxi will be leaving the hotel in fifteen minutes."

***

The taxi took them to an old battered rink in some random suburb of Zagreb. The schedule posted on the door was written only in Croatian, so Kevin had no idea what session they were interrupting, and the people behind the front counter spoke just about the same amount of English. But any idiot at any rink in the world knew who Victor Nikiforov was.

A few selfies later, the rink staff had cleared the ice and it was like they owned the place.

"You too, Vitya," said Feltsman. "Warm up and get out there with him."

It was still before 9am. Only yesterday Kevin had finished competing in his first international competition, gone to the gala, gone to the banquet, and ended up drinking brandy in a cocktail bar with Victor Nikiforov until nearly midnight. All he'd been expecting to do today was sleep until his mom banged on the door of his hotel room, and then get up and drag his hungover ass onto a flight back to Atlanta.

Instead here he was out on the ice alongside Victor Nikiforov, with Yakov Feltsman barking orders at both of them. Victor would gracefully comply; Kevin would to do his best to copy him. Then Feltsman would start shouting again. _Faster! Higher! Harder! More!_

Like the dialogue in a porn film, only with no money shot at the end. Kevin tried his best. He pushed himself further than he even thought was possible, worn out and hungover and hastily warmed up. But he couldn't do what Victor did effortlessly, however hard he tried. Fundamentally he was shit, and he knew it. He hit the ice over and over again – and got back onto his feet, ready to try again and fall some more.

When they finally left the ice, Feltsman was standing there with his arms folded disapprovingly. "Stiff. Do you do ballet?"

Kevin just stood there gasping for air, so exhausted he thought he might puke.

"Not really," he said once he'd caught his breath.

"I am not surprised," said Feltsman. "That was pathetic. I am not even mentioning your jumps."

So that was that. Kevin could feel his face burning with shame. It would have been better not to have come at all. It would have been better never even to have met Victor than to have fucked up an opportunity like this.

"Give me ten minutes and I'll get back on the ice," he pleaded. "Let me do my free skate for you, I..."

"I saw it yesterday," said Feltsman. "I don't need to see it again."

"Well, Yakov?" said Victor, zipping up his jacket. He at least had the decency to look mildly winded. "He has potential, doesn't he?"

"This is not the time or the place to discuss it, Vitya. We have to get to the airport! We're late!"

Victor looked at Kevin. "You can ride to the airport with us, can't you, Yura?"

***

Kevin had no idea why he'd said yes. Here he was, sitting in the middle seat of the taxi while Feltsman and Victor yelled at each other past him. This was so surreal.

"он американец!" Feltsman was insisting. _He's American._ "американец!"

Victor leaned forwards and smiled a charming smile over at Kevin. "Yakov is worried because we don't usually have foreigners training at the Sport Club. But you were born in Russia, weren't you? Which means you're a Russian citizen too."

"Uh, yeah? I guess so? I mean, I don't have a passport or anything, but..."

In fact he knew perfectly well that he was a Russian citizen. His mom had given him this long lecture about it when he turned eighteen earlier in the year: how he could never, never compete in Russia because they didn't recognise dual citizenship and would consider him only Russian, which meant that the moment he set foot on Russian soil they would conscript him into the army and never let him leave. She said this like he would end up goose-stepping next to a missile in North Korea. There were some papers he was meant to sign to renounce his citizenship, only he hadn't gotten around to it yet. This wasn't the result of any principled stand on his part. He hadn't done anything about his college applications either. His mom said he had given her all her gray hairs.

None of this was relevant though. He couldn't work out why Victor was talking about practicalities when it was clear that Feltsman thought he was a total loser.

"See? Он русский!" said Victor. _He's Russian._ "He could get onto the national team. That would help with his funding. He could compete for Russia!"

"But what about, like, military service?" asked Kevin.

Victor waved a hand. "It's a week or two of training. They put you in one of the sport companies, you don't actually have to do anything. Did you know I'm a First Lieutenant?"

Kevin did know that, thanks to someone who'd posted badly Google Translated excerpts from Victor's autobiography on his fan forum. But he would have died sooner than admit it.

And here they were pulling up at the swoopy, bizarrely modern airport terminal. The party was over. They would say goodbye and fly back to Russia. Kevin would go back to the hotel and then home to Georgia. He would never hear from them again and he would never, never say anything about this to anyone. 

He took a deep breath and bit his lip, trying to conjure up the perfect casual farewell. _See you?_ No, because he wouldn't. _Later?_ Too surfer dude. _Bye?_ Simple but not good enough. Oh God, this was horrible. He wished he had never come at all. He felt like he was six years old again. He could just envision himself stretched out full length on the floor in the terminal clinging to Yakov Feltsman's ankles.

There was a lot of traffic. The driver, trying to pull up to the curb, was shouting at the car ahead of them and giving its driver the finger. 

"Well, Yakov?" said Victor.

"Well what?" grumbled Feltsman.

Victor said nothing. There was a long silence, broken only by the driver leaning on his horn. Kevin's stomach was doing somersaults.

"Just for the summer," Feltsman said finally. "As a, a... испытание. Vitya, you know."

"A test? No, a trial. An experiment!"

"Yes," said Feltsman. "That."

Victor looked expectantly at Kevin. "For the summer? Will you come?"

"Uh, yeah," said Kevin, blindsided. "Sure. I guess so."

"Great!" said Victor. He beamed. "I can't wait."

Feltsman leaned forward to extract a wallet from his pocket. He unfolded it and pulled out a business card to hand to Kevin. "When you get home, talk to your coach. Your parents. Then call me. We will sort it out."

"I will," promised Kevin.

Before he could think of anything else to say – like _thank you_ – they were out of the car and paying the driver and pulling their luggage from the trunk. 

"Goodbye!" caroled Victor, waving over his shoulder as he and Feltsman hurried into the terminal. "See you this summer!"

The driver got back into the taxi and looked back skeptically at Kevin. "You go to airport too? Or no?"

Kevin – who didn't have any cash on him and couldn't remember what his hotel was called – got out of the taxi. He stood there on the sidewalk as the chaos of the airport swirled around him, wondering what the hell had just happened.

His phone rang. He looked at it for a moment before answering: 9.27 a.m. It was his mother. He had five missed calls from her.

"Kevin, thank God you've finally picked up! Why didn't you come down to breakfast? I called, I texted, I've been banging on your door. Your _coach_ didn't know where you were, the other skaters didn't know where you were..."

Kevin cringed a little. "Mom, you didn't have to bother them. I'm fine."

"Who else was I going to ask? Where _are_ you?"

"Uh, I'm kind of... at the airport. It's a long story?"

His mom made a wordless, incredulous noise. Any listener, no matter their nationality, could have translated its meaning: _why must you do this to your mother?_

"But – look, I'm going to get in a taxi. Right now. I'll explain when I get back. Just... can you tell me the name of the hotel?"

***

**Six months later...**

_ If you love them, let them go _

_For so many years with Kevin, we thought only about getting through the next day. Then we started to hope: that he'd learn enough English to be moved into a mainstream classroom, that he'd start reading at grade level, that he'd hold it together enough to graduate from high school. That his anger and his acting out wouldn't land him in prison. Along the way we added our hopes for his skating – the only dreams that ever mattered to him._

_Somewhere along the line, we got used to hoping. Like ordinary parents, we started to dream about the day when we'd send him off to college, ready to fly at last._

_We were so proud when he got the letter saying that he'd won a full athletic scholarship to Boston College. For days afterwards I was in floods of tears whenever I thought of it._

_So I'd imagined, many times, the day when we'd finally take him to the airport to see him off._

_Yesterday that day finally came. Only Kevin isn't going to college. He's going to Russia to train with Yakov Feltsman, the world-famous figure skating coach, and alongside his idol, Victor Nikiforov. Perhaps for the summer. Perhaps – Kevin is hoping – for even longer than that. Boston College has agreed to defer his admission for a year while he pursues his dreams._

_Twelve years ago there was another airport. Twelve years ago we went to Russia to bring an angry, bewildered six-year-old – our new son – back to his new home in America. Yesterday Kevin made that journey in reverse._

_"Mom," he said to me at the gate, looking so tall and handsome and determined, "I told you to call me Yuri."_

_I don't know what else I can say._

_[567 comments]_


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